Campo Santo cuts off association with "propagator of despicable garbage."

Further Reading

Campo Santo, the developer behind forest exploration game Firewatch, is using DMCA requests to take down videos of its game streamed by popular YouTube personality Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg. The move comes after PewDiePie called another player a "n-----r" (NSFW video) during a live stream of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds yesterday.

"We're filing a DMCA takedown of PewDiePie's Firewatch content and any future Campo Santo games," Campo Santo cofounder Sean Vanaman said in a Twitter thread yesterday evening. "There is a bit of leeway you have to have with the internet when u [sic] wake up every day and make video games. There's also a breaking point. I am sick of this child getting more and more chances to make money off of what we make."

Vanaman went on to call PewDiePie a "propogator [sic] of despicable garbage that does real damage to the culture around this industry," and he encouraged other developers to similarly cut off their relationship with him (no other major developers have publicly answered that call as of press time). A Let's Play video of PewDiePie playing FireWatchhas been taken down from the service as of Monday morning, though it's not clear if a DMCA request was the direct cause.

Campo Santo's decision comes despite a statement on the company's FAQ page that explicitly allows the kind of streaming PewDiePie engages in. "We love that people stream and share their experiences in the game," the site reads. "You are free to monetize your videos as well." On Twitter, Vanaman said Campo Santo still "love[s] streamers" more generally, as evidenced by 3,000 game keys given to streamers, he said. At the same time, Vanaman writes that Campo Santo doesn't want to be seen as "endorsing" PewDiePie specifically by having its game streamed on his channel.

Further Reading

That said, Campo Santo may be within its rights to rescind that streaming permission in part or in full at any time it wants. As we've discussed previously on Ars, the law treats video games as audiovisual works whose corporate owners can limit their "public performance" to large groups of people (say, via internet streaming). This is why companies like Nintendo can set strict guidelines over how videos of their games are monetized via advertising on services like YouTube.

While a streamer could try to claim their running commentary over the game provides a "fair use" exception to the DMCA, that could be a difficult argument in court. As YouTube warns on its own Help page, "Without the appropriate license from the publisher, use of video game or software user interface must be minimal." Or, as Vanaman argued on Twitter, "his stream is not commentary, it is ad growth for his brand."

Further Reading

PewDiePie is among the most popular video game streamers in the world, with 57 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. Earlier this year, he came under intense criticism after a video in which he paid two Indian men hold up a sign that said "Death to all Jews" via Fiverr. That controversy cost PewDiePie his nascent business relationships with YouTube, Disney, and Google's "Preferred" ad program.

Kyle Orland
Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area. Emailkyle.orland@arstechnica.com//Twitter@KyleOrl

I know a lot of people were willing to cut him some slack after the idiotic anti-Semitic stunt earlier. He's young, and young people sometimes do really stupid things. But I think it's now pretty clear what sort of person we're dealing with here.

As for the Firewatch Devs, while noble, I doubt their DMCA claim will stand muster. Since all software is licensed these days, they simply need to update their EULA to allow them rescind the license (and refund the money) of anyone who does not conform to their code of conduct when streaming their game.

Edit: An actual copyright attorney discussing the merits of the DMCA claim:

I know a lot of people were willing to cut him some slack after the idiotic anti-Semitic stunt earlier. He's young, and young people sometimes do really stupid things. But I think it's now pretty clear what sort of person we're dealing with here.

He's 27; that's not that young, and in my estimation definitely too old to be making "mistakes" like this.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

I would not care about this much at all if YouTubers didn't have such reach among kids. If you're doing stand-up or writing Game Of Thrones you have zero responsibility to children. But I don't want to have a conversation with an eight-year-old relative about the Holocaust or racism that starts out in this context. Or worse, not have that conversation, and they go off down some rabbit hole of links. If you are getting paid by kid views, and especially if you're working for Disney, take that into account please.

Counter-argument is that parents should monitor everything, but if you have the Disney brand, and if something pops up once in a hundred streams, that's not a realistic answer.

This really surprised me. The anti-semitic thing, it seemed quite clear he wasn't prepared for the result, "oh shit, they're actually doing it". I've also seen videos of him where he isn't in his... "persona", and he actually seems reasonably intelligent and thoughtful in those.

This however I can't explain, it's just... WTF? The only thing I can think of that, as English isn't his native language, some words don't have the same emotional weight to him. I'm Swedish too, and have been conversing online with US & UK & Canadian friends daily since the mid 90s, to the point where my online conversations are exclusively in English, and has been for ~15 years. Yet, words in English still don't have the emotional impact Swedish ones have for me.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

Personally, I watch streamers while I work on some mundane task at work. I don't want to play, but I find some people have interesting takes on the games.

I know a lot of people were willing to cut him some slack after the idiotic anti-Semitic stunt earlier. He's young, and young people sometimes do really stupid things. But I think it's now pretty clear what sort of person we're dealing with here.

He's 27; that's not that young, and in my estimation definitely too old to be making "mistakes" like this.

Pewdiepie is definitely an idiot and I wish his act would somehow be cleaned up, however a DMCA take down should not be the way it's done. Pewdiepie bought the game, he should have every right to stream himself playing it regardless what other crappy stuff he does. If he's done something illegal then what he does can be penalized, his streaming of game footage isn't that though.

All of these sound like planned 'mistakes' to exploit the increase in traffic due to negative publicity. I'm interested to see how much PewDiePie's incomes went up/down since his anti-semitic incident.

I'm sure Trump voters are rushing to subscribe to him too just to support his right to say whatever he wants.

He's actively talking about filing false DMCA claims while their own page says Firewatch is free to be streamed with monetization

I don't know about that; as Nintendo's successful DMCA takedowns have shown, it seems that developers/publishers do have a legal right to control how and whether their games are streamed, and I don't think you can waive your legal rights by simply posting a sentence on your website. It wouldn't become legal to murder me if I made a blog post reading "please shoot me in the head," for example.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

My second monitor at home is pretty much exclusively used to watch Twitch. For me, most of the time it's about having some background noise that I can partially pay attention to while I'm doing other stuff. How much I pay attention depends on what else I'm doing and who I'm watching stream/what they're playing. If I don't have time to play something myself, like when I'm home for lunch, it ticks all the same boxes.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

When you want to see a game but not buy it? I sometimes stream plays of games while playing ANOTHER game. I don't have tons of time to play anymore, so it can be nice to see enough of a game to "get it". Example: I enjoy Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, but I'll probably never buy it. Watching is sufficient.

He's actively talking about filing false DMCA claims while their own page says Firewatch is free to be streamed with monetization

There is also the fact that the DMCA claim is being filed in response to his commentary while playing PUBG, a completely different game.

The issue here seems to be more related to contract law than copyright law. I can absolutely understand if they signed a contract with him and he breached said contract, but that doesn't appear to be the case and instead they are using copyright laws to shutter him. What he says is certainly objectionable on a societal level, but DMCA is not what you use to slow him down. Selective usage seems dangerous.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

Pewdiepie bought the game, he should have every right to stream himself playing it regardless what other crappy stuff he does.

Why do you think he should have every right to stream himself playing a full game? That's not transformative or editorially significant or satirical. That's just video of him playing a game. It'd be like him reading a whole book out loud, or filming himself watching a TV show and uploading it—monetizing other people's works, potentially in violation of copyright.

Most publishers recognize that people streaming their games contributes to games' popularity and sales, and so most publishers allow it. That doesn't mean they have to.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

When you want to see a game but not buy it? I sometimes stream plays of games while playing ANOTHER game. I don't have tons of time to play anymore, so it can be nice to see enough of a game to "get it". Example: I enjoy Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, but I'll probably never buy it. Watching is sufficient.

Fair enough....I'll accept it's just something I don't understand. I'll watch a review but the idea of millions of people watching the same guy play the same games over and over again is just odd to me in general. Perhaps my age is showing.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

Personally, I watch streamers while I work on some mundane task at work. I don't want to play, but I find some people have interesting takes on the games.

That said, watching INSTEAD of playing? I don't get that.

Depends. Is it somebody monstrously good? Then it makes sense (e-sport is a thing for a reason).

Other than that, it has to be somebody who is very funny. I don't really watch streamers, but there are a couple of exceptions. There's this guy doing Total War and some other games who I find to be witty and amusing, and the videos fun to watch (I don't even play Total War).

And there's this German guy playing old 80s games on various systems. He's quite funny to, in a deadpan kind of way. And a couple of more. But well, it has to have some extra appeal, either genuine wit or interesting commentary, preferably for older games.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

I can't speak to streaming (in terms of "random person screams a lot on video"), but I greatly enjoy lparchive.org. Screenshot LPs are very easy to burn through way quicker than playing the actual game and while I usually avoid videos, there's something enjoyable watching someone way more competent than I am show how a game is meant to be played while discussing the mechanics and pointing out small details that I would have to spend literally hundreds of hours to master and recognize - plus a lot of games where there is a "grindy" nature and those parts get snipped out.

How is he still a thing? Or game streaming in general? I'm boggled by the concept of having enough free time that rather than PLAY the game you'd spend your time watching some random guy playing them and talking about it.

Some of us have rather old PC's and due to situations in life are unable to use funds for building new ones, so will tune I to a stream of a newer game to see what it's all about, and if it's worth a puchase once an upgrade can be done. At least that's what I tend to use Livestream and let's plays of games for. When fewer and fewer developers are releasing demos, watching a video of a game being played is a good way to determine if it's worth buying without having to pirate it first.

As for this idiot streamer, he's always been a juvenile ass hat and I don't expect that will change at all. Only video I've seen of him was back when Amnesia The Dark Descent was all the rage, and reaction videos to it we're big. I think I lasted about two minutes into one of his videos before turning it off and watching someone else who didn't speak like a 12 year old talking to a bunny that would randomly fake squeal at shit. How this idiot has so many followers is beyond me, especially when there are far better streamers who will actually talk about more important aspect of the game and life while playing.

He's actively talking about filing false DMCA claims while their own page says Firewatch is free to be streamed with monetization

I don't know about that; as Nintendo's successful DMCA takedowns have shown, it seems that developers/publishers do have a legal right to control how and whether their games are streamed, and I don't think you can waive your legal rights by simply posting a sentence on your website. It wouldn't become legal to murder me if I made a blog post reading "please shoot me in the head," for example.

Well the other question is has Nintendo been tested in court? Because it seems that anything is fair game in their claims, even non monetized commentary like Jim Sterling, which is a breach of the DMCA's fair use defense. However, the DMCA is a fire first and think later, which is a separate can of worms. It doesn't help that the users of it are multiple times richer than the offenders, so legal defense is often ill advised due to financial burden.

I think the Firewatch developers should include a 'We reserve the right to disallow you monetization rights' notice. This would maintain their stance of 'By default you can monetize videos you make of playing our game', while allowing them leeway to distance themselves from content they don't want to support - in fact, I bet that's what the judge tells them to do.

I don't know about that; as Nintendo's successful DMCA takedowns have shown, it seems that developers/publishers do have a legal right to control how and whether their games are streamed, and I don't think you can waive your legal rights by simply posting a sentence on your website. It wouldn't become legal to murder me if I made a blog post reading "please shoot me in the head," for example.

Something that extreme, no, because no one has the right to do that anyway. The courts will care about proportionality: is it something they can legally do, and is it being done proportionally? The answer to the first part is yes, they can restrict streaming rights. That's well-established. But can they restrict streaming rights for just this one person while allowing everyone else to do so? That's less certain.

He tried to explain it away saying that sometimes he forgets he's streaming, so apparently it's ok to use the N word as long as only your friends can hear you.

Wait wait what? Did some law get passed that outlawed the use of the "N word" in any possible use and context, in private and public? Wtf is this comment? He's free to use the word however he wants to. Did I somehow miss it turning into a voldemort situation?

And people are free to calling him a racist asshole for thinking it's not bad if you don't say it when people are listening.

He tried to explain it away saying that sometimes he forgets he's streaming, so apparently it's ok to use the N word as long as only your friends can hear you.

Wait wait what? Did some law get passed that outlawed the use of the "N word" in any possible use and context, in private and public? Wtf is this comment? He's free to use the word however he wants to. Did I somehow miss it turning into a voldemort situation?

No one's saying it's illegal, just that he's a turd for using it casually.